About

Van’s Hardware Journal (VHJ) has been around since the turn of the 21st Century and is one of the oldest computer hardware enthusiast sites on the Internet. VHJ was at one time one of the most influential sites of its kind. The old VHJ website can still be found here. Our website went on hiatus for several years and you can read about some of the reasons for this here. The defunct Google Blogger page can be accessed here.

Van’s Hardware Journal was founded by me, Van Smith, soon after I quit my position as Senior Editor of Tom’s Hardware Guide.

As head of Benchmarking at Centaur Technology, an x86 microprocessor designer, I oversaw performance testing for R&D, system level validation and marketing purposes. My performance analysis there created a marketing message that enabled VIA to become the world’s largest supplier of thin client CPUs. I also contributed to the VIA Nano’s performance improvements by conducting a wide variety of performance experiments for Centaur’s logic team.

I have created benchmarks, validation tools and testing software for Centaur and VIA. I have worked closely with many benchmark designers and have influenced and/or directly contributed to several major computer benchmarks. I represented VIA Technologies within the BAPCo consortium.

I have coding skills in C++, Delphi, x86 assembler, AutoIT, perl and other languages. I have coded business applications for the financial industry, transportation industry, and retail industry. I led a team in designing, developing and implementing a sophisticated, three-tiered, object-oriented customer service application. Our team received a prestigious Service Excellence award for this project.

I have a degree in physics and was granted a Top Secret Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information clearance. I achieved the highest score on record in the U.S. Army’s Nuclear Weapons Maintenance program.

*Analyst/Writer Milestones

My articles on Rambus technology were widely credited with causing financial turmoil for the company. One article triggered a massive sell-off of Rambus stock, leading to a precipitous sink of $150 per share on a single day. In that article, I showed that the performance claims the company made did not hold up under testing. That article and a few others were used in the FTC’s case against Rambus which eventually led to conviction.

I have covered computer benchmarks for many years. Computer benchmarks are typically software programs that are used to measure how fast computer systems are. I have influenced or directly contributed to many of the most widely distributed computer industry benchmarks. For instance, I wrote the cryptography benchmarks in SiSoftware Sandra. Information I uncovered on Intel’s influence over computer industry benchmarks is now being investigated in the FTC’s current case against Intel.

I was the only analyst in the computing industry to identify at product launch the shortcomings of Intel’s NetBurst architecture underlying the now defunct Pentium 4 line of microprocessors. The flaws I identified caused Intel to gradually lose market share to its rival AMD. Intel eventually abandoned the NetBurst architecture many years ahead of initial expectations and far short of the 10GHz goal because of the very weaknesses I identified. A major news source cited my work on the Intel Pentium 4 as some of the most important analysis produced in the first five years of the 21st Century.

I am less proud of the fact that I was instrumental in the demise of x86 microprocessor designer Transmeta. Representatives from one of Transmeta’s most important customers told me that they dropped Transmeta products after reading my articles on Transmeta CPUs. Additionally, I created the performance message that allowed VIA Technologies to become the world’s leading supplier of x86 thin client CPUs. VIA took this crown away from Transmeta.

Not expecting to see this left sitting on your site. Fair play to you if you let it.
—————————————————————————————————-

Dave,
I wanted to share some heartfelt criticism.
You’re uninformed, inflammatory and you have no place saying the things you do, or any inkling of evidence to back you up.

I spent about 30 minutes typing reasons why you are completely wrong. And then it came to me:
…you don’t even care.

As far as you’re concerned, you’re Jesus. You’re not. You’re heavily biased and very closed minded. You show no signs of humility. You probably have issues, and I feel for you for that, but that doesn’t justify your behaviour. Not one bit. Please just stop, please. Please. This isn’t even a joke, I only felt the need to comment because you’re that far off.

I’m sure you’ll pass off this negative criticism as either a conspirator trying to shut you down, because you’re so… influential (:P) , or as a test by god to keep you going. I just want to make this clear- It’s not. I don’t subscribe to any of that bullshit, which is why I felt the need to disagree with all of yours.

Regards,
Saik Caskey

ps. Plato is widely viewed as the symbol for philosophy and open-minded, ‘free thinking.’ When you place him in hell and bore him with useless, irrelevant figures and put words in his mouth, you’re only really pointing out that you’re likely a creationist and should not be taken seriously. But I wish you every success and hope you manage to work out your issues. What I would like to see is you acknowledge that you shoudn’t just make things up. But you’re a man and you probably won’t back down from all this rubbish, just like every other two-bit rapture artist out there. Thankfully i’m not a christian, so I feel in no way compelled to go into your incorrect religious statements. But I would suggest you drop this site and just stick to hardware.

Saik, I hate to disappoint you, but as far as I know, I am not Jesus. My name is also not “Dave.” I am not a Creationist. My fictional piece on Plato is meant to provoke thought and conversation.

However, I am a Christian and the teachings of Christ are my foundation of free will, self reliance and morality. Daily, I fall far short of Christ’s example, but through Him I am reborn to hopefully move a little closer to that goal with each rebirth.

I just recently discovered your website and your articles concerning the Georgia Guidestones, while I was myself researching on this subject due to the 2014-cube, and I really liked them. Very well written !

In your article from 5 years ago you wrote: “We have found evidence that a date is encoded in the Guidestones – a date that is only a few days away – and an event planned for this date may very well lend credence to the very darkest of sinister theories…Do the Guidestones contain secret messages?…What’s going to happen on January 4th, 2010 ?”
Well, you surely know that the Stones DO contain secret messages which are linked to certain events and persons, past and future. And I would be interested in an exchange of information with you because I am myself keen on decrypting them.

For example have you missed out the two most important dates that are encrypted in the Georgia Guidestones: the 9/11 attack and – yes you were right with your anticipation of a catastrophic event for some time after 2009 – the 3/11 attack on Fukushima. As it was not an accident, but a terror event perpetrated by the same group who were responsible for the 9/11 attack. And ALL encrypted in the Stones: the events and the perpetrators. I could prove it to you.

I’m a Pastor my name is Yona Mwanza from Dodoma Tanzania, I’m a freelancer translator in English to Swahili, I’m asking jobs of translation and proofreading from you,
I will be glad to read your reply.
Thank you.

Seen you after a long time hey i am interested in one of the open source hardware benchmarks you made a long time ago
can you please provide the same and help as that was one of the best hardware benchmarks i have ever seen

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